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To: Alamo-Girl
So what is the problem with applying falsification methods to evolution theory?

Not a thing. Words, however, are nuanced, slippery, malleable entities and subject to manipulation by bright human beings while mathematics, also a language, is far more precise and rigorous. Thus physics is legitimately the most respected science. The math may be esoteric but it yields specific, testable, falsifiable conclusions about physical reality and thus must be respected. There is no "wiggle room".

Not so with Evolution, which is why Master Sophists such as Gould and Dawkins could rise to public prominence within this so-called science. For years, Gould promoted the absurd notion that "chance" was explanatory. This is not only surrealistic, it is anti-science.

This fundamental sophistry at the heart of Darwin's work was brilliantly exposed by Gertrude Himmelfarb in 1959 with the publication of Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, as you know. But did you also notice that the substance of her critique was not addressed on a recent thread? When Darwinists spend their time attacking and ridiculing "Creationists" and not supporting their theory, it is a tipoff that something other than science is going on. Good science always respects the facts and good science does not draw unwarranted conclusions about reality. Abiogenesis, as tested by physical reality, is a failed hypothesis. But why won't the Darwinists let it go unless they feel there is a philosophical understanding of the universe at stake, and an anti-Christian one at that?

Here's the TalkOrigins definition:

Biological evolution is a change in the genetic characteristics of a population over time. That this happens is a fact. Biological evolution also refers to the common descent of living organisms from shared ancestors. The evidence for historical evolution -- genetic, fossil, anatomical, etc. -- is so overwhelming that it is also considered a fact. The theory of evolution describes the mechanisms that cause evolution. So evolution is both a fact and a theory.

And here's my critique of it. "Change over time" is no big deal and easily dismissed as science. So we dismiss it. Change occurs but that doesn't validate Evolution. TalkOrigins goes on to simply state that "common descent" has been established with evidence so overwhelming that it is considered a fact. Well this is simply not so. There are acknowledged and important similarities among species and the complexity of final living forms has increased over geological time but how that occured, supported by the physical evidence, has neither been established nor made plain by the Evolutionists. It is thus absolutely untrue that "the theory of evolution describes the mechanisms that cause evolution", TalkOrigins' bald but unfounded assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.

My conclusion (I'm not in the least afraid to make value judgements, as I'm sure you've noticed) is that they are lying to us and to the world. And this is validated by their constant resort to the debating tactics so well described by Phillip Johnson in his small book, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, copyright 1997, InterVarsity Press. The "tipoff" is always the vehemence of their ad hominem attacks. Some of us are, however, quite capable of trading barb for barb, if it comes to that. But it should be clear that this is not science.

597 posted on 09/05/2002 7:27:49 AM PDT by Phaedrus
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To: Phaedrus
But did you also notice that the substance of her critique was not addressed on a recent thread?

Did you read reply #663? There's nothing from you among the replies to it.

599 posted on 09/05/2002 7:34:30 AM PDT by VadeRetro
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